Monday, May 05, 2008
Heating up!
Well thanks to my little debacle with Van I have noticed more people visiting but no one is saying hello. I will try to post more of my political thoughts just for the sake of dialog if nothing else. But that is a two way street so I hope some people join in to the discussion. Lets see what to bring up? Today in Federalism we talked about the power of the Presidency as a unifying force for nationalism. One of the interesting things was that even when a President has campaigned on a platform of smaller government. They still have enlarged the system by giving either their enemies or friends a stake in the system. Sometimes the stake comes in trying to work within the system to fight a President often when people try to amend the Constitution. I just found this to be an interesting process.
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I tried to whittle down my answer, but three pages was as far as I could get - I know, a dull knife - I'll try taking an axe to it here, giving a few points alone, and ref you to my new post, if you're interested.
I think, goes far beyond the particulars of politicsand political actions amongst political people, but there was for a time something that kept them within reasonable bounds… and when you find that "They still have enlarged the system by giving either their enemies or friends a stake in the system.", it usually means that a principle has been neglected.
The particular principle that was lost grasp of, was the 'general welfare' clause of the constitution, the understanding and will to stick to what Madison understood it as "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions.", is gone. It was lost in understanding due to Hume, Rousseau, Godwin, Kant, etc, and in practice, beginning with the 'Land Grant' colleges, the first real breach of the limits of the Federal Gov't bounds, it was done by the Progressives, and the field of Education was and has remained their primary means of expanding that breach.
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